A free market is merely people freely interacting and engaging in voluntary agreements without coercion. That's a good place to start. That's not been the problem. The problem is interventionism and cronyism. I think you conflate corporatism with free markets. And I know you think we've had unfettered raw free market practices in the US for 200 years and that's been the cause of our ills, but it's simply not true. We've been living at the trough of progressivism since the early 1900s, and that's only fostered a dangerous climate of corporatism and crony capitalism.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
The free market isn't the cure, it's the disease.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
There's never a guarantee of anything. Life is dangerous. Freedom is dangerous. Without a state there's no guarantee there won't be violence, theft and oppression. Violence, theft and oppression will always exist. There is no human utopia. But maybe it'll get better?

I can guarantee this: under our current system the plagues of our society (violence, theft, etc.) will continue to exist and probably will get worse as the police state grows. I know you see it. I know you see the problems with government. You hate the war as much as me. You hate the police state as much as me. Voting hasn't and will never remedy this growing problem, because it's only proven to increase it over time.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Why do you think these problems would go away without a state? Why should I believe that violence, theft, guns and oppression wouldn't be much worse under your system?

>> ^gorillaman:

Here we are with our downvotes and promote powers, an elite of an elite, privileged members of the internet class, which is itself already practically superhuman, talking about our democratic website? LOL.

I'm noticing that you aren't really responding to my argument, but instead are trying to declare Videosift...what? An oligarchy? An Aristocracy? Totally devoid of any wisdom of crowds?

I've never really seen downvotes make a difference when it comes to getting on the Top 15. Hell, I can't even remember the last time I saw a video get more than 3 downvotes.

All promote and quality do is increase exposure. They can make a difference between a video "sifting" instead of going to pqueue, and it can pad the number of votes it gets after it hits the Top 15, but I doubt you could get, say, a video of silent blackness into the top 15 purely with quality and promote.

>> ^gorillaman:
The misconception I see in your posts is this arbitrary distinction between the oppressors and the oppressed. The average man on the street is as guilty today as the plutocrat with his snout in the trough, because if their positions were reversed they'd each behave in the same way.

It's not a misconception, it's that I disagree with your assertion. I doubt reversal would make no difference. In any case, my aim isn't to "reverse" their positions, but to equalize them.

>> ^gorillaman:
Accountability to 'the people' is hardly a check on corruption if the people themselves are corrupt.

The theory is, if people vote for politician A, and A does things that fuck them over, they can vote for another politician next time. To use the favorite conservative example, you can't raise taxes with impunity, because if people don't think it's justified, they'll vote you out. Get rid of the vote, and those eeevil government bureaucrats can raise taxes, and spend all of it on palaces for themselves instead of healthcare. The only "accountability" valve then comes in terms of an armed rebellion.

You're vaguely alluding to a tyranny of the majority issue, but in practice every tyranny I can think of has been a "tyranny of the elite".

>> ^gorillaman:
There's a linguistic issue here as well. Over time 'democracy' has become perversely synonymous with 'freedom'. There's an essential difference between taking power away and taking freedom away. Power here means the power to enforce ones will over others, freedom is the freedom from the power of others. Removing power from the majority will actually increase their freedom.

Again, it's not a linguistic issue, it's that you disagree with other people's feelings about democracy. Maybe that's justified, maybe it's not, but it's not that people don't understand what the words mean.

As for freedom vs. power, it's a slippery thing. I'd say they're synonymous in this context in a lot of ways.

Do I have the ability to own a house because I'm "free" to do so, or because I have the power that comes from having the talents to build a decent career for myself? Or am I "free" to have land like this because the government is ensuring that my property rights will be respected? Or am I somehow a slave to the majority because I pay taxes to a democratic government?

>> ^gorillaman:
Look at the progress of this thread. I don't see much ideological territory left to the democrats, squeezed as you are from both sides. While dft lectures blanarchist on the need for a government to protect free men from one another, you want to turn around and give those same men a stake in that same government with all its might and authority. Even on the site of your last stand - the desperate, impossible compromise of constitution, you admit to massive deception and malfeasance and even in the strongest and best designed democratic state an apparently irredeemable collapse. With all this you still believe democracy is moral? It amounts to a kind of political stockholm syndrome.


For all the proclamations of victory, I notice that the vast majority of that paragraph refers to things people other than me have said. I haven't used the word "constitution" until just now, for example.

I do think the US's implementation of democracy is headed for a collapse. Not because people left to their own devices slit their own throats (which you seem to think is inevitable), but instead because a wealthy elite has effectively subverted the mechanics of democracy.

So you say to me, as the elite stands over our wounded democracy, choking the last life out of it, that this is proof that the corruption and stupidity of the people has finally led to democracy's demise, and demand that we empower the elite to rule over us.

That's Stockholm syndrome.

Hell, you have yet to even try to explain what it is you're really suggesting, beyond that you want Superman and the Justice League to come and save us from ourselves. Not only that, you want them to totally ignore what we might say about their edicts, lest our filthy corruptness infect them.

@NetRunner

Here we are with our downvotes and promote powers, an elite of an elite, privileged members of the internet class, which is itself already practically superhuman, talking about our democratic website? LOL.

The misconception I see in your posts is this arbitrary distinction between the oppressors and the oppressed. The average man on the street is as guilty today as the plutocrat with his snout in the trough, because if their positions were reversed they'd each behave in the same way. Where everybody's only responsibility is to their own interest, which it is in a democratic 'believe whatever you want, vote however you want' anarcho-relativist system; the difference is one of chance only.

Accountability to 'the people' is hardly a check on corruption if the people themselves are corrupt. Our goal shouldn't be to defend unsuccessful criminals from their more effective rivals. The great value of government is that it tears power out of the hands of the people, so they can't do as much damage with it.

There's a linguistic issue here as well. Over time 'democracy' has become perversely synonymous with 'freedom'. There's an essential difference between taking power away and taking freedom away. Power here means the power to enforce ones will over others, freedom is the freedom from the power of others. Removing power from the majority will actually increase their freedom.

Look at the progress of this thread. I don't see much ideological territory left to the democrats, squeezed as you are from both sides. While dft lectures blanarchist on the need for a government to protect free men from one another, you want to turn around and give those same men a stake in that same government with all its might and authority. Even on the site of your last stand - the desperate, impossible compromise of constitution, you admit to massive deception and malfeasance and even in the strongest and best designed democratic state an apparently irredeemable collapse. With all this you still believe democracy is moral? It amounts to a kind of political stockholm syndrome.

Isn't the internets great? Takes - what? About a day for people to cull through MadCow's trough of rabid foam-flecked spittle to find proof that she's not only an idiot but a lying, slimy, hypocritical idiot. Nice to see average people putting this specimen in her place. Yeah - you're a stupid hypocrite Maddow. We all knew it, but it's nice to see it proved so simply and eloquently with your own video. Now we can just erase your smarmy voice from your newscast and just replace it with, "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Kind of like torturing them, long pauses putting food right under their noses. Why not just invest in a trough, just uncover it and let them all go at it.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Unless you are going on a small handful of issues, I don't see how progressive types could form a coalition with the Libertarian minded. Just seem to be way too many fundamental philosophical issues. However, I think the US would be served by a multi-party system that required factions to seek allies on key issues. The duopoly of the major parties really does exist.

The fierce jousting you see on TV is the greatest show on Earth, and a farce. They all go to the same country clubs and eat from the same pork troughs. Throw the bums out.

Largely local, largely fresh. Make some laws that fucking matter. Destroy utterly all large agribusiness.
Dow and Monsanto???-Drag the motherfuckers into the square and kill the CEO's in a public fashion. Subsidize only industries that create and produce non-poison....Next phase, destroy pharmaceutical companies and put their CEO's on trial in the Hague, for crimes against humanity....Eugenics is alive and well at McDonalds, Wendy's, and Kentucky Fried Motherfucking Chicken.

Follow the money-For close to 4 centuries, the same fucks who created empire and continue to do so, did it with sugar, slaves, and drug trafficking. They are still in the same business, and the business of disinformation and propaganda tinctured with faulty programming trough public "education" , is the major culprit...that and the complicity of those who fancy themselves intelligent who are products of the abortion called, "university."

Can we expect the shit to change anytime soon??? Fuck no.....Oh well...MORE ROOM FOR ME!!!

They should be really scared of the future.

It should scare you too, because a huge population of illegal voters and voters on the dole are only going to vote for more and more reckless domestic spending when the American economy is already on the brink. Great democracies collapse when the public votes itself too many goodies at the public trough. We're already at an unsustainable level of domestic spending. It's time to cut public spending drastically, not expand it.

Fission or Fusion I support.

Solar: I don't see the harm in using it regionally or locally where it makes geographic sense (places like deserts). But Solar will never in a bazillion years be able to serve as the primary power source for the human population. Statistically, human power needs peak and trough at irregular times that are unsupportable by direct feed power from solar energy. The only solution is to over-produce solar energy in massive quantities and store it in batteries. Batteries are far more 'dirty' than coal or gas. No. Solar is a curiosity - not a solution. Any power source that will serve as the world's primary power source must be able to deal with human power demands in a 'real world' manner - and solar ain't it. Same goes for wind.

Hydrogen cells: Haw haw! You can't change the laws of physics. There is more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than there is in a gallon or pure hydrogen. The energy compression exchange is too poor for hydrogen to be a power source for anything except a very large vehicle like a bus, or land-locked structures with specific, predictable power needs. Refining & compressing hydrogen to the point where it is usable as a 'fuel' for large populations is more energy expensive than burning wood.

by the time we achieve practical fusion it's going to be too late to stave off crisis

Stave off 'the crisis'... What crisis? There is enough oil on the planet to keep going another 80 years without even touching stuff like shale. If you go with shale then Earth can go 200+ years. There is no 'crisis' in terms of fossil fuels. Or are you talking about the AGW boogeyman that is routinely and consistently being proven to be a complete fabrication?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I spent Y2K in a nuclear hardened bunker.

2000 was a big year for me. Had a baby boy, began my life in Australia in earnest - lost a lot of money (stock options) in the dotcom crash.

The years until 2005 were a bit of a blur, I remember the peaks and troughs, but that's it. Bought a house, changed jobs a couple of times, climbed the corporate ladder.

At the end of 2005 something clicked- I wanted out. We sold our house and most of the stuff we own. I quit my job and we bought round the world ticket for the family. We spent the next 5 months backpacking - went like this: L.A, Las Cruces, NM, Alaska, Vancouver (Lasik), Ireland, Girona, Spain, Osaka, Japan Bangkok, Thailand and then back to Australia- pretty much broke.

In 2006 I rented a little office with a friend who was working on a motorized skateboard thing. I didn't know what I was going to do, but we were paying rent, and we had a bar fridge stocked with Coronas. I started plonking away on my laptop - and VideoSift was launched on February 16th 2006.

Aside from the birth of my son- the highlight of my decade was VideoSift - still feels great to be part of something like this. I've also changed jobs a couple times, taken a few overseas trips, moved house way too many times and watched the kids grow.

>> ^kate44:
Hello my dear.
My name is Kate, i saw your profile today and i became intrested so please i will like you to send email back through my email address:
(kate_aliyu@yahoo.com). pls i will like you to send me your email address so that i will tell you more about my self and also my picture you to know who i am .hope you understand.thanks.And i will like you to contact me trough my email adress(kate_aliyu@yahoo.com)
Am waiting to see your lovely reply soonest.
Miss Kate.


*ban

Fox is televisions equivalent to the trough.

nobody other than John Stewart calls them on it

If that's where you get your information then you'll never want for moonshine. Stewart's a comedian - nothing more. If you want to go ahead and stake out the position that you get your talking points from a comedy show then go ahead. Just don't act all surprised when you join a serious discussion and people point at you and laugh.

As far as 'lying' about things - that's what politicians do. I don't like it, but it happens. But I note with dry, distant amusement that you confine your 'lying' accusation only to Republicans. Fact of the matter is, that the bulk of the actual lies in this discussion are coming from the liberal Democrat side of the aisle. "If you like your plan, you can keep it" indeed. Even the most cursory reading of the house bill clearly shows that is deceptive. The bill would kneecap private plans down to under 10% of the market within 5 years, and the Democrats know it.

facts to ignore

The NCHC is a fronted neolib pro-government group. It's easy to ignore crap that sluices out that particular trough. Follow the money. NCHC is run by the AARP, the AFL/CIO (unions), GE, and a bunch of other groups that want a public health care option for political reasons. This bunch of clowns doesn't care what stillborn plan flops out of the government's womb as long as it has the word 'reform' stuck on it.

Always fun to see people try and defend the indefensible. Please - keep telling us just how 'fair' it is to have trillions of dollars confiscated from the people in order to feed a bloated, uncaring, incompetent bureaucracy.

That really is the main issue you 'Pro Government' people just can't seem to grasp. You keep defending high taxes under the rubrick that these taxes are all going towards funding 'poor people' or 'the sick' or 'to build great infrastructure'. The reality is that this perspective you try and sling us is 100% pure bull. Government taxation has been documented to be the LEAST efficient method possible to benefit the citizenry. For every dollar that goes into the government trough, only about a quarter comes back out in the form of actual good & services. Sometimes its more like a dime or a nickel.

The truth is that the government takes in over ten times as much money as it 'needs', and probably about 75% to 80% of what the government actually DOES isn't a 'need' so much as it is a 'lavish expense'. The government takes in billions not because it actually has billions it 'needs'. It takes in the money because it is feeding itself and trying to constantly increase its scope and size. It managed to do this year after year because there are a lot of well-meaning (but ultimately stupid, gullible, ignoramouses) who buy their propoganda that we 'must' keep giving to government in order to help out Sally Sadsack or Harry Hardluck. But the truth is that the poor and needy can be helped out far more efficiently and directly by private systems.

I'd much rather personally have ALL withholding taxes abolished completely, and have a national sales tax that excluded food, fuel, vehicles, homes, personal savings, medical care, and articles of clothing. Then federal government would be reduced to people only paying when they bought luxuries. Of course, that implies that all government social programs would immediately end, and government would be pared back to it's original Consititutionally mandated roles of defense and intra/inter state regulation. The primary taxation should always be at the state and local level, where the people have more control over both what is taxed, and how it is spent.

The forbidden Killing Fields of Amsterdam DVD by Steve Brown.

A different look at crime trough the light of Lex Naturae, ius naturale.

A true crime documantary presented by Steve Brown with never shown portraits of notorious liquidations, corruption and treason in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Not about the famous tulips, wooden shoes and cheese, but for the first time it shows the hidden Amsterdam-Noir, sex, drugs, murder and fears corruption.

Based on the bestselling book "Killing Fields Amsterdam".

A Film by Brown Productions.